Girls afraid of the wedding night may want to remember that all our ancestral mums went through the same ordeal, if that’s what it is, and they survived to fight another day for things far more important.*
If you are afraid he may be disappointed he may be scared stiff this strangest of all tools may malfunction and disappoint both of you, all the family and friends and shame the humanity of men around the world.
We only thought about this post when we read a post from an Arab girl with some experience telling her sisters not to worry too much because the man may be worried about the first night even more.
There is a great deal of rubbish in the West about virginity written mostly by men with silly questions like: “Are there virgins left out there?” It appears there are, and more than some men would like to think. Girls who slept with their boyfriends have complained that since they had their first encounter, the boy wants to do nothing else. Even an ice cream had to be licked from a flat position.
Still, in the West it is a private matter, more or less, but not in most Eastern societies. In many Arab countries girls are still murdered by relatives for losing their virginity and the pressures to remain virgins are considerable. In some cases mothers of the brides would be waiting outside the bedroom to get the proof of blood spillage to show relatives their daughters were chaste. We have many friends who slept with their girlfriends before marriage and most of them are still together. In a few cases, the parents of girls with lost virginity may offer the groom to be significant discount on the dowry which usually goes to the girl who may use it to buy things for herself or her flat.
Some daring Arab girls who slept with their boyfriends, or what have you, appear to have regretted the decisions and they are flocking to London by the plane load to freshen it up. Here is more on the subject of virginity:
http://prospect.org/article/virginity-around-world
And here is a story about a Lebanese girl who blinked at her boyfriend’s flat and woke up to find herself virginless and thought “never in the history of womanhood virginity was sacrificed so cheaply.”
https://plus.google.com/+AdelBishtawihistorian_and_novelist/posts/NKqKjbLsj85
If summing up is required, it is not as strict as it used to be say 50 years ago but it all depends on the families and regions.
In Akkadian there are a number of words to denote virgins or inexperienced girls such as:
1- ardatu: young woman, maiden, maid, virgin, lass;
2- batultu, batussu: [Human → Body] an adolescent girl, a nubile girl, a teenage girl, a young maid, a virgin (?);
3- batūssu: a girl, a maid, a virgin;
4- lā lamdu: [Moral life → Conscience] 1): without experience, inexperienced; virgin;
5- lummudu: [Education] 1) : word: taught; 2);
6- unīqu: [Animals] young she-goat, a kid [religion] : [unīqu lā petītu]: a virgin kid;
7- wardatu: a girl, a young woman, a maid / a virgin.
The fact there are a number of words that mean or could mean “virgin” is significant in itself because they prove virginity was important. However, not all the words literary mean “virgin”. The first one is famous since it is the origin of “Eros, erotic and erotology”. The root is *ʼR. It is a category so it is all inclusive of private parts and the joint life of man and woman.
The other part of the linguistic cluster is the reversed *Rʼ “see” (*Rʼa). What has ‘seeing’ to do with sex and man-woman partnership? They have to see each other before anything can happen. This cluster is logical – boys and girls saw each other, met, fell in love and got together.
Word no 7 (wardatu) is from the same root but the linguistic structure is different: w+*ʼR. This is a beautiful word and it means “rose”. So, there you have it, a “rose” is not a metaphor for a girl but the name of a girl herself. The name remains today one of the most popular in the Arab world although it is several thousand years ago as a trilateral and probably 40,000 years + as a root because love, sex, marriage, children and home-making is a second generation linguistic inventions, the first includes words connected with life, like water, food, etc.
The root of the two nouns in no 2 and 3 is the same but we are surprised to find it with a ‘b’ rather than ‘p’, so it is possible it was migrated during the Amorite era, or Babylonian rather than Assyrian era. ‘*PT’ is “to sever, stop, cease, abstain, cut something from the root”. It simply means a girl who is severed from sex. Mary, Jesus mum, is called “Mary the batul”, i.e. “the one who abstains from sex”.
Words 4 and 5 do not mean “inexperienced” but literary “untaught” as a girl may have an encyclopaedic knowledge of sex but can’t write her name. It is from the same root as ‘talmīdu’ “school boy, pupil, student, disciple.”
Readers who think they’ve heard the name somewhere are right. ‘Lā lamdu’, ‘lummudu’ and ‘talmīdu’ are from the same origin as “Talmud”, i.e *LM.
Word no 6 looks interesting: unīqu: [Animals] young she-goat, a kid [religion]: [unīqu lā petītu]: a virgin kid. The root is *NQ “to pick” like a bird. ‘*NQš’ is “to engrave” because the artist “picks” at the stone like chicken pick seeds. Notice that petītu is similar to the French word. We could have agreed with the French but Akkadian is 4,000 years old+.
From *ʼR, the category for sex, private parts, home, etc., is *ʼRz.
Here is what Lisan Al Arab, the 12th century most important Arabic dictionary says about the word: “ʼRz: Shrink, shrink away, constrict, contract. Ex. The snake regressed, i.e. stood still or went back into its hole tail first so the last to remain outside was her head. It is said the action by the snake is taken when confronted and becomes scared. If it is not, she goes in her hole head first.”
Of course Arab lexicographers would provide the correct meanings but they don’t know what they are describing. More importantly, they don’t know the root which is concerned with sex, etc. It looks to us they are describing how some girls react to sex for the first time because the category is about girls and boys not snakes.
Back to the advice of the experienced girl to her inexperienced Arab sisters: “It is natural for the girl to be frightened and very shy. If the fear persists she may opt out of marriage. Inaccurate information to girls may include that deflowering is painful and followed by bleeding. If she is frightened she may have a case of vaginal contraction that makes sex difficult or impossible. In this case, the husband’s ability to perform may be weakened.” Final advice: “The bride groom has to respect the feeling of his wife. Force and coercion must not be used. These things are best accomplished by tenderness, foreplay and love talk.”
Interestingly, hymen in Arabic is ‘ġša’ “membrane”. We believe the ‘ġ’ (French ‘r’) is originally ‘ayin’ (ʻ) or *ʻŠ “nest”. This is a category but one of its meanings is cunt and not just because some nests do like it – much.
When was the preferred time to have sex?
Girls are the only females in the entire animal kingdom who provide all year round sex, an absolute fact girls should never tire of reminding boys with. If we correct in assuming ‘ġša’ was originally *ʻŠaʼ, then this word has several meaning in Arabic including “dinner, after dinner, when it is dark after sunset, have sex”. Actually, in Arabia un-Felix (because of dictators and fossilised kings and sheikhs) if somebody has a recurring duty that’s a must heard is this term, “His/her duty is that of women after dinner”. In Arabic it is just in case you know the language (عليه ما على النساء بعد العشاء).
If you haven’t read the post about “nests” you should. Satisfaction assured. Besides you will be looking at a linguistic cluster we believe to be the greatest human language invention:
https://plus.google.com/100191404216524196296/posts/bJMGwQnudXb
What were the favoured sex positions in ancient times?
We are told the “doggy style” is a position men really enjoy because it’s quite primal. He gets to feel powerful and can see the mechanics of what’s going on at the same time. Men love that for some reason.
It may be so but girls appear to have hated this position. From the root of the category for Yemeni style love making, a bit serious, *NK we have *Nkas “to kneel” or “to drop”. Today the word is used to express “setback”. What did they like? We do’t know but we are seven billion today so it must have been OK.
Image: Iski Uski Video Song: You’ve seen the video and you know what is meant by presenting the groom with a key. The interesting thing is Arabic ‘muftah’ is key. The verb is ‘fatah’ “open”. This verb is used to describe deflowering of a girl. The wedding night is called ‘laylat al dakhla’ “the night of entry” but it doesn’t mean the girl. To understand why such words are used we have to go back thousands of years ago when a home was a cave or a hut made of bamboo or branches. The door would be a skin so the occupants had virtually to “open” the way by pushing the skin aside.
And here’s a story I heard from mum’s friends when they used to congregate around the fountain in the yard: The bride groom was trying his best when he heard strange noises under the bed. The girl tried to stop him looking but he did. To his surprise a tied and head-covered cockerel was under the bed struggling to free itself. On interrogation, the girl admitted it was her mum’s solution because she had lost her virginity when she was little because of an accident. The poor cockerel was to be slaughtered at a convenient time, and a cloth will be stained with its blood to show relatives she was a virgin. The husband was great. He cut his own finger and provided the proof and saved both families, his and hers, from a disastrous scandal and humiliation. To my knowledge he never regretted his sacrifice. The last time I checked they had five kids already but cockerels are never served for dinner. It must be chicken.
Last modified: December 30, 2022
